


too weird to live, too rare to die

by wanderlustnostalgia



Series: Songfics [3]
Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Angst, F/M, Inspired by Music, POV Second Person, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, but i tagged it as brendon for reasons, it's based on brendon but not actually brendon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustnostalgia/pseuds/wanderlustnostalgia
Summary: in honor of the 3rd anniversary of panic! at the disco's fourth album:  a story of a sinner, a girl, and the city they call home.





	1. this is gospel

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is a bit of a misnomer: I started this on the 3rd anniversary of TWTLTRTD, but didn't actually finish it. But I wanted to share it, so I'm posting it here :)

this is how it ends:

in a dark room on a white bed with masked beings in blue scrubs and latex gloves hovering over you,

and you are barely breathing, drifting in and out of consciousness like a child with a fever while they work,

instruments of precision, sharp lines of cold metal gripped between pale fingers cutting into a sickly white body on a sterile white bed,

(later on your mother will weep and wail into your chest as she tries vainly to stick up your hair and mourn the loss of your pretty brown eyes and though you never agreed on much or really got along at all you were still her son and she was still your mother and you will leave a hole in her heart that no one else will be able to fill)

and perhaps it is this thought that rouses you, or sets you free,

because lights are flashing and your head is spinning and suddenly you're wide awake and your heart is pounding like there's no tomorrow and you're pulling against the binding ropes and they're pushing you back against the bed and you should be thinking  _save me, save me,_  but you're too far gone to be saved and they should stop trying, because you're not everyone's perfect little angel and if they really cared about you they'd let you fall,

down

      down

            down

                  down

to the place no one dares enter,

the threshold no one dares cross,

but this song is not for them—

this song is not for the living,

but  **for the fallen ones**

**locked away in their permanent slumber** ;

**for the vagabonds,**

**the ne'er-do-wells and insufferable bastards,**

people like you who didn't know the meaning of good

and stumbled one foot over the other into bad situation after bad situation like you couldn't help yourself,

(or maybe you just didn't want to be helped);

and she's watching with tears in her eyes and her hands over her mouth as they force you back into unconsciousness and try to save you once again,

but how can you explain that you don't need to be saved—

that you don't want to be saved?

_if you love me you will understand—_

**_if you love me, let me go._ **


	2. miss jackson

you met her in a bar in vegas,

(and that's how it starts, isn't it? everything starts in vegas;

life and lust and loss and death—it all comes back to vegas)

she had her hair pulled up and black-white-grey feathers pinned over her ear

and she looked at you with a raised eyebrow while you grinned your cocky little grin and said to the bartender,

 _pour me another one, and one for the lovely lady next to me_ ;

and she rolled her eyes, but she was intrigued,

because your mother always said you were a charmer with your chocolate eyes and your crooked smile and no one could resist that perfect face,

and you asked her her name and she said,  ** _miss jackson_  **as she ran her tongue along her lip,

and you smirked and asked her,  ** _miss jackson, are you nasty?_**

and she said  _maybe_ with a small smile and a twirl of her hair,

and you'd met plenty of girls in your lifetime,

but one look into those eyes and you knew she was something else,

she was danger and intrigue and trouble,

the femme fatale from every old noir movie all wrapped up into one and packaged in a cocktail dress and burgundy lipstick that left stains on the glass of whiskey she downed five minutes later when she whispered in your ear,

_come home with me,_

and you couldn't refuse her,

what fool would?

and ten minutes later she was in your car, in the passenger seat while you drove at top speed down the empty highway stretch,

the vegas lights blurring in the window,

the only sound the rumbling of the road beneath the tires;

she didn't speak,

and neither did you,

except once when you lit up in the parking lot as you pulled up to the motel and she wrinkled her nose with distaste,

and you said  _what,_

and she said  _nothing,_

and you rolled your eyes but stayed silent,

because some things are meant to be dropped—

things like her heels, kicked off at the door,

things like her dress, on the floor,

things like your shoes, discarded in the closet,

things like your jacket, the gaudy gold sequined one you always wear to vegas bars,

( _do you always wear such tacky things,_  she purrs against your lips,

and you answer,  _style is subjective_ as you run your fingers through her hair;

she's not the first one to question your style but she's the most direct about it)

and the hours tick by,

and her kiss tastes sour like a peach-and-lime daiquiri,

and you murmur,  ** _where will you be waking up tomorrow morning,_**

and her answer isn't  _here_ or  _in your bed,_

but a whispered  _none of your business, honey_ as she yawns and pulls away, shrugging on her nightgown,

and you can only stare at her as she leaves a final kiss on your lips

and slips quietly  **out the backdoor**

never to be seen again;

 ** _goddamn,_** you think, drifting off,

**_but i love her anyway._ **


	3. vegas lights

a week passes,

you drive, you drink, you sleep,

and you spend your time thinking of  _her,_

her body draped against yours in the dead of night and the words that fell from her lips,

and you wonder about her story,

and how she came to be sitting at the counter on a barstool in vegas,

and whether she puts on vinyls in her free time or goes to shows or just sits in bars and drinks,

**oh if you only knew, if you only knew what she'd been up to,**

then maybe you could get to know the girl behind the makeup behind the hair behind the coat,

and maybe she could tell you all her secrets under the vegas lights,

her face lit up pink-and-green by the neon casinos

as you knock back identical drinks

and throw away your money in the name of good fun,

because  _vegas is **where villains spend the weekend** , _a familiar voice says,

and she's sitting at a restaurant table staring up at you and mixing her glass of tea,

and there's a mixture of mischief and boredom in her expression that you can't quite understand,

and she says, looking at you quite seriously,

_do you like it here?_

and you open your mouth to answer but no sound comes out, because you don't know if you like it here, not really, but where else can you go?

 _where else is there for sinners like us,_ she says, and she looks you in the eye and she looks dead serious, and you're wondering whether you should sit down or say something or leave, but she makes the choice for you when the next words fall from her mouth—

**_would you change it if you could?_ **


	4. girl that you love

you're really starting to fall for this girl.

you're really starting to fall for her, and it's a problem,

because you can tell that she doesn't feel the same way,

when she yanks on her jeans and hastily fixes her hair and you're still lying in bed, wanting her to come back

because you like it when she lies against you and hums softly against your chest,

because you fall asleep to the sound of her singing new wave songs under her breath,

because you catch her staring up at the stars once and she talks about how the stars are ten times prettier than any of the city lights,

and you'd dispute her on that except she just looks so beautiful against the night sky, her face illuminated by the pale moonlight and her hair falling in her eyes,

and you want to hold her and kiss her and talk to her and sing to her and  **surrender all control** —

but she's gone every morning

without so much as a kiss goodbye or a note left on the pillow,

and so you do what any insane man with a crush would do—

you get behind the wheel,

and you follow her home,

and you knock on her apartment door and she opens it with a sharp intake of air and a shocked glare,

because you  **followed her home followed her home followed her home followed her home**

and she thought your relationship was purely physical but clearly there's more here,

and she wasn't expecting this, she wasn't expecting any of this,

but before she can shut the door your lips are on hers,

and she's leaning into it and you've got her pressed up against the doorframe,

moaning your name,

and you know that this will end with you in her bed and her pushing you away,

but what else can you do but  **drown every sense you own**

**for the girl that you love?**

**_the girl you loathe._ **


	5. nicotine

you told yourself you would never go back—

that she was bad for you,

she was leading you on with her pretty hair and her pretty lying eyes and those pretty lying lips of hers,

and she's clearly using you for one thing when you're using her for another,

you told yourself you'd never go back,  **cross my heart and hope to die** ;

but here you are again—

in her room, yanking on your jeans while she fixes her hair in the mirror and you hate her, hate her so much, because while you said good morning she said goodbye and she didn't open her mouth but you saw it in her eyes,  _those lying eyes_ —

_curse those eyes._

**it's a fucking drag** , isn’t it?

you saw a therapist once and he called you an addict,

and the irony was that this was before you took up drinking and smoking and all the vices vegas has to offer,

and when you asked him what he meant he said you had an addictive  _personality type_ —

that you have a tendency to throw yourself headfirst into situations that can only end badly,

so maybe this is your addiction at work;

or maybe she is too powerful to resist—

at home you wash the sin from your face,

and you think of how she kissed you, hard,

like she was stealing the breath from your lungs,

and how every time you look at her in bed you seem halfway convinced that she might just be in love with you too,

and you curse **your lungs,**   **curse your eyes,**

and you tell yourself,  ** _just one more hit,_**

**_one more hit and then we're through,_ **

**_'cause she can never love me back,_ **

_she will never love me back;_

but you've never been good at keeping promises, have you?


	6. girls/girls/boys

you start suspecting on your seventh visit—

and maybe you're nosy or maybe she's just sloppy,

but that second toothbrush by the sink isn't yours,

and you're not certain its hers, either;

you don't ask.

 ** _i've got a boyfriend_** _,_  she tells you, eyes narrowed,

but that doesn't account for why she keeps letting you in,

why she never turns you away,

why every attempt at a conversation just ends with you in her bed;

and you don't catch on until you're at her house for the twelfth time,

and you see a car that isn't hers parked across the street,

with a pink-purple-blue flag stuck to its dented bumper,

and a girl that's not her stumbling out of the house on wobbly heels,

but not before kissing  _her_ one last time—

you fight about it the next time you see her,

and she says  _it's none of your business,_

and it isn't,

but as long as she keeps letting you in, everything is your business,

and you're screaming, because she lied to you,

because all this time her other man was another woman,

because she's never looked at you the way she looked at her—

and you've got her up against the wall, and she's yelling and you're yelling,  _ **push another girl aside,** push her aside **and just give in,**_

because maybe you don't want to face the truth;

maybe  **you're better off alone,**

**just a villain vying for attention from a girl who can't decide,**

a girl who lacks the inner confidence she projects so well on the outside.

she glares after you as you leave her house,

and because you have no sense of self-control you call after her,

**_if you change your mind, you know where to find me._ **

she spits a  _fuck you_  and a polished middle finger, and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

and isn't that just sad, you think, tears blurring and obscuring your vision as the rain beats down on the highway; isn't it just sad that you're not that different, that neither of you can help it, that you're left cursing and crying and drowning your sorrows by a stupid four-letter word;

 ** _love is not a choice,_** she told you—

**love is not a choice.**


End file.
